Peggy Noonan on Iraq

In her column today, Peggy Noonan charges the president with, in her words, "patriotic grace." It's a kind of "bipartisan forbearance," she says. The president ought to cut his opponents some slack, credit them with good motives and actual wisdom. The president should be humble, graceful and ask for help. That would "break through the clutter" and it would make news.

No question. It would make news. The president's opponents and the news media would interpret it as weakness. They would argue he knows he's defeated. They'd say he's finally recognizing what they have known for years: Iraq is lost and so is he.

Noonan says it's the president's fault that his opponents misinterpret what he says. She says that when the president argues that "precipitous withdrawal [from Iraq] will create a vacuum that will be filled by killing and that will tip the world to darkness," what his opponents hear is "I got you into this, I reaped the early rewards, I rubbed your noses in it, and now you have to save the situation."

Noonan credits the president with being right about the dangers of leaving Iraq too soon. She says his warnings are realistic. But she apparently thinks he ought not issue warnings. He ought instead to soften his message so it doesn't make his opponents angry. If he would do that, she seems to suggest, Harry Reid would stop saying the war is lost.